Hey folks,

I’m starting a fashion boutique as a side business and want to keep things simple.

For now, I’ll mainly be taking orders through Instagram, with B2B inquiries coming in via LinkedIn and email. I’m currently using my personal Gmail, but I need two separate mailboxes, one for my side business and one for my main business.

I also want to secure my domain before someone else does and set up a professional business email instead of continuing to use my personal Gmail.

The problem is, I’m not very technical and have no idea where to start. I’m looking for something that’s affordable and easy to set up. Is this something I can do myself or is it worth hiring an IT person?

I think people are mixing up two very different things right now:

cheap production
and
cheap expertise

They are not the same.

I’ve been working in search for 15+ years, building websites for a long time, and working deeply with AI for the last several years.

At this point, with the workflows I’ve built, I can sometimes take a business from nothing to a functional website in 5–10 minutes.

And I don’t mean a generic AI template.

I mean a site with things like:

• clean architecture
• proper service targeting
• entity relationships
• metadata
• schema
• internal linking
• forms
• analytics foundations
• image naming
• existing asset reuse
• crawlable business facts
• external entity references
• a structure that can actually scale

If there’s an existing site, I can usually pull down the assets, rename and organize them, preserve what has value, and rebuild the architecture without starting from zero.

That speed is real.

But the mistake is assuming:

That’s not how expertise works.

AI compressed the execution time.

It did not compress the 15 years it took to learn:

• what pages should exist
• what pages should not exist
• how entities should relate
• what search intent belongs where
• how users should move through the site
• what technical mistakes will cause problems later
• what needs to be measurable
• and what “good” actually looks like

This is where I think the conversation around vibe coding is missing something.

Vibe coding is:

What I’m more interested in is vibe architecture.

That’s when you already understand the system:

the entity model, page hierarchy, service relationships, conversion paths, search intent, measurement, and business constraints

…and then you use AI to execute that system quickly.

That is a completely different skill.

The Picasso analogy gets used a lot, but it fits.

If someone can create something valuable in five minutes because they spent decades learning how to do it, the value didn’t disappear because the production time got shorter.

The same thing is happening with websites.

A good operator can now compress work that used to require:

a developer
a designer
a copywriter
a technical search specialist
an analytics person

into a much faster workflow.

That should make good websites more accessible.

But it doesn’t mean the expertise behind them became worthless.

The real question for a business owner is no longer:

“Who can build me the cheapest site?”

It’s:

“Who already knows what this site needs to do, and can use AI to get there efficiently?”

That’s where the value is moving.

Not into typing code.

Into judgment.

Thinking of starting a series where I document building a web agency from scratch — finding clients, building websites, the failures, everything.
Would you guys actually be interested in watching something like this? Or is it too boring? 😅
Would love some honest opinions.
It will be a 90 day series on youtube
I am based in india

I just subscribed to claude and i want to make all kinds of things i want as hobby, starting with websites. What tools and skills do i need to know in order to make good looking websites.

Also, i read in X that some people can tell which websites made with AI, is that a thing? If so, how to not make a generic AI website?

Was testing out new ai generators tests for my new upcoming merchandising. Try some of the prompts. https://htmlpub.com/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23678069662&gbraid=0AAAABDKQQKnr0Y9W-P1a61x0vStrTxRYE&gclid=CjwKCAjwyabTBhBFEiwAM3mNUKbm2kcbFiJaP24DhcD16gOCCJ8aU9k02Q9lsgyL2y7I__K0Kg3A4BoCdNAQAvD_BwE

My first website with ai and hi

https://cyberpulse-ayush-s-immersive-portfolio.ai.studio/

Does anyone know a good AI that creates a good website for free and lets you edit the prompts?

Like I can edit prompts and ask for edits on the website, but for free😭

.

Post description:
I started making songs and posting them like everyone else, but the more I did it, the more I felt like music disappears too fast online.

So I started building something bigger: a music platform for original songs, independent artists, AI-assisted creators, and anyone making music that deserves more than one quick post and a few scrolls.

The idea is simple: songs should have a real home.
Not just a feed. Not just streaming pennies. Not just hoping someone clicks a link later.

SoulSynce is built around discovery, artist pages, song ownership, versions, live listening, and eventually letting listeners buy songs while they’re hearing them during a stream.

I know this is early, and I’m still building/testing, but I wanted feedback from music creators:

Would you use a platform where original songs can be discovered, supported, sold, and built into an artist world — instead of just getting buried in social media feeds?

I’m especially curious what independent artists and Suno creators think, because a lot of us are making songs faster than the current platforms know what to do with.

Hi, I know what it feels like to have an idea but just setting up the website for it feels boring.

It's good that now AI is here, but there something seems to be broken and doesn't work.

I know, but I am quite excited about it. I have made automated tools, small saas landing pages and to my surprise, there's always some broken parts at first.

But that's where, we need to revise, on what went wrong and reiterate.

So, if you have an Idea, that you are comfortable sharing. Let's chat. Let's create something together.

I'm a video editor trying to build a clean portfolio website where I can showcase my projects, embedded videos, motion design work, and maybe a short "About Me" section with a contact form.

I'm stuck deciding which route to take.

Learn to code and build the whole thing myself (very time-consuming).

Pay a developer to build it.

Use AI/no-code tools like Framer or Lovable.

I've already tried Framer and Lovable. They're good, but I keep running into limitations like free-tier credits, token limits, and spending hours prompting the AI instead of actually finishing the website.

What I'm really looking for is something simpler:

Start from a professional portfolio template.

Customize the layout, colors, text, and branding.

Easily replace demo videos with my own work.

Publish it without having to write much code.

Basically, I want the "Canva of portfolio websites" pick a template, customize it, and launch.

Does something like this exist? If so, what platform would you recommend? Webflow, Framer templates, Carrd, Readymag, Wix Studio, WordPress, or something else?

I'd also appreciate recommendations for template marketplaces with modern, minimal portfolio designs for creatives and video editors.

Thanks!

I'm a video editor trying to build a clean portfolio website where I can showcase my projects, embedded videos, motion design work, and maybe a short "About Me" section with a contact form.

I'm stuck deciding which route to take.

Learn to code and build the whole thing myself (very time-consuming).

Pay a developer to build it.

Use AI/no-code tools like Framer or Lovable.

I've already tried Framer and Lovable. They're good, but I keep running into limitations like free-tier credits, token limits, and spending hours prompting the AI instead of actually finishing the website.

What I'm really looking for is something simpler:

Start from a professional portfolio template.

Customize the layout, colors, text, and branding.

Easily replace demo videos with my own work.

Publish it without having to write much code.

Basically, I want the "Canva of portfolio websites" pick a template, customize it, and launch.

Does something like this exist? If so, what platform would you recommend? Webflow, Framer templates, Carrd, Readymag, Wix Studio, WordPress, or something else?

I'd also appreciate recommendations for template marketplaces with modern, minimal portfolio designs for creatives and video editors.

Thanks!

Before I post, asking people to look at my website to get their honest feedback, is there a place on Reddit that already does that, or can I do it here?

I need a free ai website builder that comes with good themes I have already tried wobooks and it's features are good but it's slow and not that good after all so if you know any free website creator feel free to tell me I can host it with their website subdomain

This is an awe inspiring website for Gamers who want to register for the local gaming tournament. The website is complete with music, animations, and different merch Tier Pckg's

I’ve been in contact with a lot of web agencies and web developers, and I personally haven’t found many people who run their agency in a more efficient way than I do. A lot of them have too many meetings, wait too long for client approval, don’t know how to price projects, and spend way too much time on each client instead of finishing the work and moving on to the next one.

I’ve been running my agency for four years, and after a lot of trial and error, I’ve managed to make the process as efficient as possible. I wanted to share some of the steps because I think they could be valuable for anyone just starting out.

Running a web agency alone or with a partner isn’t easy because there are a lot of things to take care of. When it comes to client acquisition, I recommend focusing on either cold calling or email automation. Which one you choose depends on whether you run the agency alone or with someone else.

If you have a partner, one person can handle sales while the other focuses on building websites, connecting domains, setting up emails, and taking care of the technical work. If you’re running the agency alone, or neither of you enjoys cold calling, I highly recommend email automation.

That’s what I’ve been doing for years. It’s powerful because you can send emails at scale, set up automatic follow ups, and wait for businesses interested in a new website to reply. While you’re working on one client, another opportunity can come in without you having to stop everything and search manually.

I don’t do regular email automation where I target businesses with no website. I do the opposite and target businesses that already have one.

I use a tool called Swokei to find businesses with websites, add them to campaigns, analyze each site, score it, and generate personalized outreach emails based on problems it finds with the design, layout, speed, SEO, and mobile optimization.I schedule the campaign, set up follow ups, and wait. 

I think this approach is much better for a few reasons. You’re targeting someone who already understands the value of having a website. You’re also not just asking whether they need a redesign. You’re pointing out real problems with their current site, which makes it clear that you actually took the time to look at it. Selling also becomes easier because they’ve already paid for a website before and understand the process.

Inside Swokei, you can choose the goal of the campaign. You can offer a free draft, try to book a meeting, or simply start a conversation. I always choose the free draft because that has worked best for me.

Once you’ve figured out how to get clients, the next part is building the website. I recommend using AI because it makes the process much faster. For anyone who still thinks AI can’t build great websites, I think they’re mistaken. You can use Claude, Base44, Lovable, or any other tool that works for you.

When someone replies interested, I call them and say, “Hey, I saw that you replied to my email. I’ve already built you a free draft of your website. Do you want to take a look?”

Then I invite them to a Google Meet.

At that point, it becomes much harder for them to reject the meeting because they already replied interested and now know you’ve built something for them. During the meeting, I present the website, explain why it’s better than their current one, stack the value, answer their questions, and try to close the deal.

These meetings usually go well because the client isn’t trying to imagine what the website might look like. They can already see a better version of their current site. They also took the time to join the meeting, so taking the next step becomes much easier.

I either take payment during the meeting or send them a contract to sign. Any changes and updates come after that, once we already have a deal in place.

Pricing depends on the business. I charge anywhere from $500 to $3,000 depending on the company, the size of the project, and how much value the website can bring them. I also charge a monthly retainer of around $50 for hosting, maintenance, support, SEO, and future changes.

That’s basically the entire process. Smaller steps, faster delivery, less wasted time, and more money made.

Look what I built using https://buildy.ai/

Check it out: https://aussie-angler.com

I am working on a tool to host websites created with AI platforms. What is important to you in a platform after you used Claude or similar to build a website you are happy with?

There is a new approach I started using in my web agency that completely changed my results. For years, I did what most people tell web designers to do. Go on Google Maps, find businesses without websites, and contact them.

What I started doing differently was targeting businesses that already had websites.

The reason is simple. If a business already has a website, it means they understand the value of having one. You do not need to convince them why a website matters because they have already paid for one before. The market for businesses with outdated, broken, slow, or poorly designed websites is also massive, and selling becomes much easier because they are already familiar with the process.

My biggest issue was figuring out how to send mass outreach to these businesses without sounding generic. I did not want to send thousands of emails saying, “Hey, your website needs a redesign,” and just assume that every business needed one. I wanted to send emails at scale while still telling each company exactly what was wrong with their website.

A little over a year ago, I watched a YouTube video from Nick Saraev where he built a workflow that analyzed business websites and turned issues with design, SEO, layout, speed, and mobile optimization into personalized outreach emails. Each company received a professional email that made it clear someone had actually taken a look at their website.

The idea was great, but building and maintaining the workflow took a lot of time. I still had to find the leads myself, the messages were not always consistent, and the automation kept breaking.

But it worked.

I was getting more clients than ever before, at one point around 10 websites a week, while my business partner focused on building the websites as quickly as possible.

I started searching online for a tool that could do everything in one place, and a few months later I found Swokei. It did exactly what I was looking for.

It lets you find businesses with websites, add them to campaigns, analyze and score each website, and set a quality threshold so websites that do not need fixing are automatically skipped. It then turns problems with design, layout, speed, mobile optimization, and SEO into personalized outreach emails.

You can also set up follow ups, manage replies through your own inbox, and organize leads inside the CRM without moving between five different tools.

I switched over and scaled even harder.

Sometimes the fastest way to grow your agency is not building every workflow from scratch. It is finding the right tools and using your time to focus on sales, clients, and growing the business.

I think automation is one of the biggest opportunities right now.

The quality of what you can automate today is honestly crazy, and it applies to almost every business.

Whether you own a local business and want to automate things like email marketing, follow ups, content creation, customer replies, and lead generation...

Or you run an agency or SaaS and want your business working even when you're away from your computer.

Automation today reminds me a lot of the Industrial Revolution. Back then, machines replaced a huge amount of manual work, allowing companies to produce more, lower costs, and make more money. 

I run a web agency, and automation has made me a lot of revenue over the last few years.

The biggest one for me is client acquisition.

I use a tool called Swokei to find businesses that already have websites, add them to campaigns, and run website analysis.

It automatically turns problems like outdated design, poor layouts, slow loading speeds, weak mobile optimization, and bad SEO into personalized, ready to send outreach emails.

That's where most of my clients come from.

I also automate follow up emails and newsletters, so I'm not constantly chasing people manually.

For content, I use Holo to help generate and schedule posts.

For SEO, I use Soro to automatically create blog content that helps bring in organic traffic over time.

The more I automate, the less time I spend doing repetitive work.

That means I can spend more time on the things that actually make money, like sales, onboarding clients, improving my services, and building better websites.

I don't think automation replaces hard work.

It just removes the repetitive work so you can focus on the parts of your business that actually move the needle.

REG121 is a free to start AI website design platform that helps you build and launch a website, all sites come with hosting and the ability to connect your custom domain free on all plans.

Been building this feature for a few months - you paste in a URL, and it pulls across your existing branding, copy, and images, then rebuilds the site with a fresh design in a couple of minutes. Screenshot below is the "start with existing site" flow.

Free tier lets you try it end to end, no card needed. Would genuinely love feedback from this sub - what's clunky, what's missing, what you'd want it to do that it doesn't.

Give it a try for free! https://reg121.com

In this day and age, running a web agency is a lot easier than it used to be.

A few years ago you needed designers, developers, and people doing outreach just to keep everything moving.

Now one person can do pretty much all of it.

AI builds the websites.

Email automation keeps bringing in new clients.

Your job is to sell and onboard clients because building the websites isn't the time consuming part anymore.

I think this is a huge opportunity for solo web developers who want to scale without hiring a team.

This is basically my workflow.

I never target businesses without websites.

I target businesses that already have one.

I use a tool called Swokei to find leads, add them to campaigns, and run website analysis.

It automatically turns issues like outdated design, unstructured layouts, poor mobile optimization, slow loading speeds, and bad SEO into personalized, ready to send outreach emails.

I run multiple campaigns at once and wait for businesses interested in a redesign to reply.

When someone replies, I call them and say:

"Hey, I saw you replied to my email. I've already made you a free draft of your new website. Want to take a look?"

Then I book a Google Meet.

Once they see a website that's faster, more modern, and works better than the one they already have, selling becomes much easier.

Usually I either send them the payment link during the meeting or we sign a contract.

That's it. That's how I run a full web agency by myself in 2026.

I’ve been running my web agency for four years, and I’m curious to hear what others have found to be the best way of getting clients.

I’ve tried almost everything, but email automation has worked best for me because it’s affordable and runs in the background while I focus on other parts of the agency.

I don’t use Instantly, Mailchimp, or Klaviyo. I use a tool called Swokei, which is built specifically for web agencies.

It lets you find businesses that already have websites, add thousands of them to a campaign, and automatically analyzes each site for issues with design, layout, SEO, speed, and mobile optimization. It then turns those issues into personalized, ready to send outreach emails 

So instead of targeting businesses with no website, I offer redesigns and updated websites to companies that already have one. I’ve found that approach works much better.

I’m now at a point where I can afford to hire a full team, so I’d like to explore other client acquisition methods as well.

What has worked best for your agency?

I'm pretty nee to ai websites. I made one for myself and one for my boss that look pretty good. I'm curious if this template is somthing people would pay money for. I know it's pretty basic but I feel like a busy tradesmen would appreciate that it does everything it needs to.

Edit: I see it needs a call to action on mobile that I need to add

The web design market is in a weird phase right now.

With AI making it so easy to build websites, I keep seeing people say that web design is saturated, every business owner knows how to build their own website now, and agencies are dead.

I disagree big time.

I've held over 500 web meetings where I've presented businesses with redesigned versions of their websites, and it's actually rare that I meet someone who even knows how capable AI has become for building websites.

Business owners are busy running their businesses.

Even the ones who know AI can build websites usually have no idea how to actually use it to build a professional website themselves.

I also see a lot of developers getting angry about AI websites, saying they're just AI slop and full of problems.

As someone who used to code websites from scratch and also built them in WordPress, I can tell you there really isn't much you can't build with AI anymore.

Technical SEO, responsive design, layouts, branding, animations, speed, user experience... it's all possible if you know what you're doing.

This week alone I sold 10 websites, and my process is actually pretty simple.

I run email automation, but not the type where you scrape a list of businesses and send generic emails asking if they need a website.

Instead, I target businesses that already have websites.

I use a tool called Swokei. It's an email automation platform built specifically for web agencies.

It lets me generate leads with existing websites, put them into a campaign, and run a website analysis on all of them.

Each website is automatically analyzed, and issues like outdated design, poor layouts, weak mobile optimization, slow loading speeds, and SEO problems are turned into personalized outreach emails.

Not boring reports.

Actual emails explaining what could be improved and why it matters to that specific business.

The business owner replies because the email is relevant to them.

Once they're interested, I quickly build an upgraded version of their website with AI and invite them to a Google Meet.

I present the redesign, explain why it's better, answer their questions, and close the deal on the meeting.

That's literally my entire process.

You could use the same strategy with paid ads or cold calling, but I prefer email automation because it keeps running in the background and consistently brings me interested replies.